Ann Major - Terms of Engagement

His burning gaze, which had ignited way too many feminine hormones, rose to her face again. When he smiled as he continued to stare, she bit her bottom lip to keep from returning his smile.

Rising, he towered over her, making her feel small and feminine and lovely in ways she’d never felt lovely before. He moved toward her, seized her hand in his much larger one and shook it gently.

“I’m very glad you decided to give me a second chance.”

Why did his blunt fingers have to feel so warm and hard, his touch and gaze so deliciously intimate? She snatched her hand away, causing his eyes to flash with that pain he didn’t want her to see.

“That’s not what this is.”

“But you were avoiding me, weren’t you?”

“I was ,” she admitted and then instantly regretted being so truthful.

“That was a mistake—for both of us.”

When he asked her if she wanted coffee or a soda or anything at all to drink, she said no and looked out the windows at the sun sinking low against the San Antonio skyline. She couldn’t risk looking at him any more than necessary because her attraction seemed to be building. He would probably sense it and use it against her somehow.

With some difficulty she reminded herself that she disliked him. So, why did she still feel hot and clammy and slightly breathless, as if there were a lack of oxygen in the room?

It’s called chemistry. Sexual attraction. It’s irrational .

Her awareness only sharpened when he pulled out a chair for her and returned to his own. Sitting down and crossing one long leg over the other, he leaned back again. The pose should have seemed relaxed, but as he concentrated on her she could see he wasn’t relaxed—he was intently assessing her.

The elegant office became eerily silent as he stared. Behind the closed doors, she felt trapped. Leaning forward, her posture grew as rigid as his was seemingly careless.

His hard, blue eyes held her motionless.

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit this afternoon … or should I say this evening?” he asked in that pleasant tone that made her tremble with excitement.

She imagined them on his megayacht, sailing silently across the vast, blue Gulf of Mexico. Her auburn hair would blow in the wind as he pulled her close and suggested they go below.

“You’re my last appointment, so I can give you as much time as you want,” he said, thankfully interrupting her seduction fantasy.

Her guilty heart sped up. Why had she come at such a late hour when he might not have another appointment afterward?

The sky was rapidly darkening, casting a shadow across his carved face, making him look stark and feral, adding to the danger she felt upon finding herself alone with him.

Even though her fear made her want to flee, she was far too determined to do what she had to do to give in to it.

She blurted out, “I don’t want you to marry Jaycee.” Oh, dear, she’d meant to lead up to this in some clever way.

He brought his blunt fingertips together in a position of prayer. When he leaned across his desk toward her, she sank lower in her own chair. “Don’t you? How very strange.”

“It’s not strange. You can’t marry her. You don’t love her. You and she are too different to care for each other as a man and wife should.”

His eyes darkened in a way that made him seem more alive than any man she’d ever known. “I wasn’t referring to Jacinda. I was talking about you … and me and how strange that I should feel … so much—” He stopped. “When for all practical purposes we just met.”

His eyes bored into hers with that piercing intensity that left her breathless. Once again she felt connected to him by some dark, forbidden, primal force.

“I never anticipated this wrinkle when I suggested a marriage with a Murray daughter,” he murmured.

When his eyes slid over her body again in that devouring way, her heart raced. Her tall, slim figure wasn’t appealing to most men. She’d come to believe there was nothing special about her. Could he possibly be as attracted to her as she was to him?

“You don’t love her,” she repeated even more shakily.

“Love? No. I don’t love her. How could I? I barely know her.”

“You see!”

“Your father chose her, and she agreed.”

“Because she’s always done everything he tells her to.”

“You, however, would not have agreed so easily?” He paused. “Love does not matter to me in the least. But now I find myself curious about his choice of brides. And … even more curious about you. I want to get to know you better.” His tone remained disturbingly intimate.

She remembered his revolving bedroom door and the parade of voluptuous blondes who’d passed through it. Was he so base he’d think it nothing to seduce his future wife’s sister and then discard her, too?

“You’ve made no secret of how you feel about my father,” she whispered with growing wariness. “Why marry his daughter?”

“Business. There are all these rumors in the press that I want to destroy Murray Oil, a company that once belonged to my beloved father.”

“It makes perfect sense.”

“No, it doesn’t. I would never pay an immense amount of money for a valuable property in order to destroy it.”

“But you think my father blackened your father’s name and then profited after buying your father out. That’s why you’re so determined to destroy everything he’s built, everything he loves … including Jaycee.”

His lips thinned. Suddenly, his eyes were arctic. “My father built Murray Oil, not yours. Only back then it was called Sullivan and Murray Oil. Your father seized the opportunity, when my dad was down, to buy him out at five cents on the dollar.”

“My father made the company what it is today.”

“Well, now I’m going to take it over and improve upon it. Marriage to a Murray daughter will reassure the numerous employees that family, not a vengeful marauder, will be at the helm of the business.”

“That would be a lie. You are a marauder, and you’re not family.”

“Not yet,” he amended. “But a few Saturdays hence, if I marry Jaycee, we will be … family”

“Never. Not over my dead body!” She expelled the words in an outraged gasp.

“The thought of anything so awful happening to your delectable body is hateful to me.” When he hesitated, his avid, searching expression made her warm again.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s say I take you at your word. You’re here to save your sister from me. And you’d die before you’d let me marry her. Is that right?”

“Essentially.”

“What else would you do to stop me? Surely there is some lesser, more appealing sacrifice you’d be willing to make to inspire me to change my mind.”

“I … don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, what if I were to agree to your proposal and forgo marriage to your lovely sister, a woman you say is so un-suited to my temperament I could never love her—I want to know what I will get in return.”

“Do you always have to get something in return? You wouldn’t actually be making a sacrifice.”

His smile was a triumphant flash of white against his deeply tanned skin. “Always. Most decidedly. My hypothetical marriage to your sister is a business deal, after all. As a businessman, I would require compensation for letting the deal fall through.”

Awful man.

His blue eyes stung her, causing the pulse in her throat to hammer frantically.

“Maybe … er … the satisfaction of doing a good deed for once in your life?” she said.

He laughed. “That’s a refreshing idea if ever I heard one, and from a very charming woman—but, like most humans, I’m driven by the desire to avoid pain and pursue pleasure.”